Deidamia Achilli

Did You Know?

• The poem is preserved completely in only one manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2782.
• The earliest manuscript, Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, Va 26a, is incomplete.
• The poet may have been a member of the Loire circle and an influence on Baudri of Bourgueil, who was probably writing in 1080–1107.
• A partial edition of the text first appeared in 1879; the whole text was critically edited by Jürgen Stohlmann in 1973.
• The poem opens with the lines: 'Legitimam nuptam si dici fas sit amicam, / Haec tibi casta suo mittit amica viro.'

Intertextuality

The poem draws heavily on Ovid’s Heroides and Statius’ Achilleid, functioning as both a response and a pairing. It answers Statius while aligning with Ovid. Deidamia’s character comes from her depiction in the Achilleid, but the poem’s structure is Ovidian. Many of her complaints directly counter the reassurances and promises Achilles makes in Statius’ epic. The poet follows Ovid’s practice of giving a voice to a woman silenced or barely heard in earlier literature, even imagining what Ovid might have written if he had lived to read Statius. The poet may be responding specifically to a line in the Achilleid where Deidamia wonders if she will remain hidden, not even mentioned by servants.

The poem also serves as a counterpart to Heroides 3, a letter from Briseis to Achilles, the woman who replaced Deidamia in his affections before also being taken from him. The poet may have aimed to complete a pair, since Ovid himself created two such pairs: Heroides 6 (Hypsipyle) and 12 (Medea), both women abandoned by Jason, and Heroides 5 (Oenone) and 17 (Helen), both women abandoned by Paris. Deidamia Achilli and Heroides 3 are set at the same moment and respond to the same event: Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon. However, because Deidamia writes from Skyros, she does not know that Agamemnon has taken Briseis from Achilles.

The poem relies on readers knowing the full story of the Trojan War to create tension and dramatic irony. Deidamia fears Achilles will never return because of Briseis, yet hopes he will kill Hector. The reader knows he never returns because Paris kills him in revenge for Hector’s death. Deidamia also stresses her status as Achilles’ lawful wife, though she was his mistress before and they were married only the night before he left for Troy. Ruth Parkes notes that critics have been convinced by her rhetoric into viewing the poem as a Christian moralizing exercise on marital and extramarital love. Suzanne Hagedorn highlights the poet’s superior skill in drawing out the moral—lawful wife over barbarian mistress—compared to medieval commentators on Ovid.